Psychological Disorders: What Does Crazy Really Mean?

The question of what it means to be labelled ‘psychologically abnormal’ is examined closely in Rosenhans study of ‘On Being Sane in Insane Places’. This study highlights the usefulness and consequences of being diagnostically labelled.

Abnormality can be defined in several different aspects... According to the English Oxford living dictionary (2017) abnormality as ‘’ Deviating from what is normal or usual, typically in a way that is undesirable or worrying. However, there are several ways of defining abnormality including: failing to function adequately, deviation from social norms; statistical infrequency; deviation of ideal mental health.

Diagnosing an individual with a mental illness balances on a fine line between giving a life-long label and misdiagnosing. Mental illness is best viewed on a continuum, allowing for a varying degree of severity. In the field, mental health professionals are faced with determining what signifies the appropriateness of diagnosing a mental illness. A professional’s judgment is impacted by their personal perceptions and observations, societies views and norms, and the patient’s history. The film, “How Mad Are You? A Search for Insanity” demonstrates the difficulties in distinguishing those who are mentally ill from those seen as healthy ( ). I will explore my reactions and thoughts regarding the participants’ experience as well as the mental

He grabs his hair in an attempt to escape the constant, faint hum in the back of his head as the internal voices maintain their persistent ridicule. A swarm of people stands around him after his involuntary wails attract their attention. The man glances up from his knees and asks the mass, “Why won’t you help me?” In No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America, author Ron Powers explores the historical aspects of schizophrenia while exposing his sons’ struggles to deepen the reader's knowledge about mental illnesses and fade the line dividing ‘crazy’ and ‘normal.’

Doyle, Jim, and Peter Fimrite. "Caring for Mentally Ill Criminals Outside of Prison Is Dangerous." America's Prisons. Ed. Clare Hanrahan. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Criminally Insane Taking over State Hospitals." San Francisco Chronicle 22 July 2001. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.

Holden Caulfield is an insane person in a sane world. What is insanity? Insanity is when you’re in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior or social interaction. This state is mental illness. Insanity is when you do things in deranged or outrageous ways that could frighten people, or make people feel uncomfortable when around you. It’s when you do things out of the ordinary; yet feel as if they are ordinary. Insanity could come about when you’re depressed, or after a traumatic event, and sometimes even by keeping all your feelings bottled up inside of yourself. Sane people are sensible, reliable, well-adjusted and practice sound judgment. It’s behavior that is expected in a society. By these

I suppose one can use conformity as a reasoning for these results. Society as a whole has learned to conform to social standards and change their behavior to fit in so they aren't so different from others, so as not to be the odd one out and when they see others behaving differently than themselves, or as the society that they're in, they're labeled as “weird” or “strange.” Behaviorists might say

When using this approach to define abnormality you would first have to consider what is normal behaviour for that particular culture otherwise a person could be incorrectly diagnosed as abnormal. Cultural differences are also a problem for the 'Failure to Function Adequately' definition of abnormality. This classification of abnormality involves a person who conforms to their 7 characteristics of the abnormal as having ill mental health. Examples of these characteristics are vividness, unconventionality and observer discomfort.

Another side could be that the time this happened wasn’t a time of mental illness enlightenment, resembling the day and age we live in now, knowledge of different cases, studies, and illnesses are so readily known that you aren’t going to just be classified as just “Crazy”. At that time and most likely prior to this incident with the shooter. if you started saying that you felt yourself changing or, you were having thoughts that didn’t meet with the norm, you were just “Crazy” that was it, cut and dry . If you did

“Hamlet”, like all of the Shakespearean tragedies, leaves questions unanswered when it comes to the main characters' true thoughts and mental health. When it comes to the novel “Freaks Like Us”, skillfully authored by Susan Vaught, the reader is quite clear of what the protagonist, Jason “Freak”, is enduring when it comes to his clinical Schizophrenia which means he has the propensity to show schizophrenic symptoms of “withdrawal, apathy, hallucinations, or delusions.”(Veague 1) The term “crazy” is thrown around a bit too overzealously in today's vernacular. What does it mean to be truly crazy? According to the dictionary a crazy person is described as senseless, impractical, and totally unsound. Sounds like Prince Hamlet could easily be accused

What is crazy? Most people are not quite sure if crazy might be a mental disorder or if it could simply be someone who is different than the majority of the people in their community. A man named Jay Gatsby might know a thing or two about being crazy as he had a lot of the character traits of someone with narcissistic personality disorder in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. An individual with this personality disorder is extremely selfish, with a showy view of his own talents and wealth. It is someone who believes that he is special and can only be associated with other special or high-status people.

Insanity means being really crazy,foolish and possibly having dementia. An example of a fictional insane person is the Joker. In fact the Joker put Harley quinn in a pool of poison and made her insane like him. Madness is another word to describe insanity. Insane people are in mental hospitals.

There four main attributes on being insane, 1) Knowing reality from fantasy, 2) can or cannot manage his own affairs, 3) controllable/uncontrollable, and 4) knowing from right from wrong. To begin with, Mr.Smith didn’t know if he was in reality or fantasy. On page 55, “I heard

When you are insane, you are busy being insane - all the time... When I was crazy, that's all I was. - Sylvia Plath

When we think of the word “crazy”, there might be a negative connotation to it for some. Well, it is a word that we normally use to describe someone as demented or loose in the mind. Almost immediately, the term “crazy” brings up scenes of mentally unstable people talking to themselves along the streets. However, if this was the case, why do we still use the word on friends or ourselves so often? Phrases like “You’re crazy for driving so fast” or “I’m going crazy for you” do not exactly raise alarm bells concerning our mental health. Instead, it is more like a figure of speech. In fact, there are many ways that we use “crazy” in our conversations. Apart from its traditional meaning, we use it to describe sudden aggression, anger, extreme enthusiasm, as well as substitute it as a word for “extremely” and “foolish”. So as you can see, “crazy” can take on a lot of different meanings in different contexts. This got me thinking though; why exactly does “crazy” have such a bad reputation? If we get down to it and strip away the context of the situation, isn’t “crazy” just another word we use to describe things that are beyond our common sense? It made me wonder if we were so used to our daily norms and routines